


Parties of the Political Variety

by orphan_account



Series: Percy Weasley Needs a Damn Hug [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And he hates percy at first, Angst, Corruption, Don't worry I fix it, Family Dynamics, Found Families, Fred Weasley Lives, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Ministry of Magic, POV Percy Weasley, Parties, Percy Weasley-centric, Reconciliation, Reveal, Secret Relationship, Sequel, The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible, The Ministry really sucks ass, gala - Freeform, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 22:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Percy's going to a gala, and his family will never be the same. He'd done too much during the war for people to forget.





	Parties of the Political Variety

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up at 4 in the morning and I wrote all of it so I could post today. Eek
> 
> Okay wait this is the third part it's the sequel of a sequel to Reconciliation and Tricky Decisions I can't believe I forgot to write that

Employment at the Ministry was still down, Percy’s father’s tactics proving ineffective. There was supposed to be a celebratory gala for all the war heroes, complete with a chance to meet the Harry Potter, in the flesh. Of course, it was probably all just an excuse to get money and more employees. 

It must be that. There was no other rational reason for it to be happening next Saturday. But still, Percy lay awake and kept thinking. What if it was like the galas during the war? He had tried so hard, kept so far away from the shadows of the Death Eaters and their taunts to join them at the gala, Weasley dear, it will be wonderful. 

He choked on a sob. There was no way that he would be attending a murder in five days time with Penny Clearwater and his estranged family. It was ridiculous. 

He crept down the hallway, floorboards squeaking and a house away, the pipes weeping, dripping extra water. ‘Audrey?’ he asked, knocking lightly on her door.

She opened it, disheveled and clad in only a flimsy nightdress. ‘Come in, Percy, it’s fine, you can come in,’ she said quietly. The two of them had learned long ago not to ask questions, only to let them curl in your bed, sometimes wrecked with sobs or silent or whispering confessions like it was church on Sunday morning and you had been out on Saturday night. 

He sat with a thump on the bed. ‘What is it?’ she asked, square and unmoving. She seemed really quite strong, for once. Leaving the Ministry was good for her. 

‘I’m worried,’ he said dully, wooden and awkward like one of the plain pine blocks his mother had made for him as a baby. He fidgeted clumsily with the tassels decorating her canopy. ‘Not really, though. I’m scared.’ He looked up at her. ‘It seems strange to say that, doesn’t it? After what happened at the Ministry?’

Audrey dropped onto the bed, pulling him down so that she could cover him tight with the heaps of blanket on her footboard. ‘I’m always scared,’ she said. ‘I almost… miss? The Ministry. Because at least I knew what to expect. It feels like I don’t know how to handle myself, when I can be near my coworkers, and we can laugh together, loud, and no one will get punished for it. I’m starting to have a public life again,’ she said, pushing her fingers into his hair. 

‘It’s just that we’re having a gala. And that reminds me of the ones that were… well, you know what they were,’ he whispered.

‘Yes. I do,’ she answered, laying down beside him and falling back asleep. He joined her,

The next morning, Audrey woke up at the same time as him. With her new job, she went in hours later than him, but it was a comfort just to have her there. He stretched, boneless in the sheets tangled around his legs. She was already up, getting dressed and pulling his ankles to the edge of the bed. He smiled towards her. ‘Breakfast?’ he asked, climbing over the footboard.

‘I’ll make it,’ she responded, wandering down the stairs. 

‘Thanks!’ he called after her, going into his room to get dressed.

‘Eggs are ready!’ she yelled up the stairs, and he rushed down, trying to tie up his robes and pull on his socks and grab his briefcase all at once. The only way he managed was because of spells. 

He dove into the plate, eating every scrap of still warm eggs. When he looked up again, she was smirking. ‘Good?’

‘These are delicious. Thank you, Audrey,’ he said obediently. 

She sighed, looking across the table to him. ‘I’ve been thinking. You said there was going to be a gala?’ 

‘That’s right,’ he replied, furrowing his brow. She wasn’t looking at him, her eyes flitting around the bright, warm kitchen that had been much cleaner ever since oliver moved out. 

‘I should go,’ she said, simple and straight to the point. That was Audrey. 

‘What? No, you shouldn’t. Penny’s mad, she’s still so furious at you for leaving. It’s a disaster there, we’ve been understaffed for weeks and no one except for me knows what’s happening, but it isn’t like anyone’s listening who matters. It’s better, but you are going to hate it there.’ 

She flinched, proving his point exactly. ‘We’ll invite Oliver. If it’s the four of us, it will be better,’ she said, every word sounding forced. He raised his eyebrows at her, and her plastic smile lost it’s edge, transformed into exhaustion personified. Her voice was small and quiet. ‘I know. I know it isn’t going to be good for me, and Penny’s going to see me and she’s going to hate me for leaving, but you need this. Just because we aren’t dating doesn’t mean I don’t love you with all of my heart, Percy. No one new there, least of all your father, is going to take you the slightest bit seriously unless we make them see.’ 

Percy blinked back surprised tears. His voice was roughened with emotion. ‘Audrey… you don’t have to do this. You really don’t.’ 

She reached across the table to squeeze his hand. ‘I know,’ she said lightly, ‘But I’m going to call up Oliver and we’re going to get them to listen to you.’ 

He smiled brightly. ‘Well, that’s going to work out. I’ll see you when I get home from work.’ He kissed her on the cheek in lieu of a goodbye and flooed away. 

Percy absently annotated another line, adding another layer of color to the hundred and one page stack of paper that was already a rainbow. ‘So. I hear we’re going to a gala tomorrow,’ someone said behind him, and Percy knew that rich tone that spoke of tousled Quidditch hair and mind-scrambling smiles. 

‘Oliver!’ he cried, whirling around with bright, hopeful eyes and leaping into his arms. Oliver cradled him close, cuddling his head in between the crook of Percy’s neck. 

‘Oh, I missed you, Perce,’ he whispered. Percy tipped his head down to offer a lazy kiss. Percy tried to hold it, but he couldn’t help but smile like the world was on fire and he wanted it to burn. Oliver leaned his head into Percy’s shoulder.

‘Missed you too, Ollie,’ he said softly. 

Then, he was all business except for the smile lingering on the edges of his lips. ‘SO, what are we doing? A classic maneuver, everyone’s very professional? Or do you need me to fight your brothers out back?’ 

Percy frowned. ‘Who’s idea was that? That’s a terrible idea. Anyway, I don’t really know. Audrey’s the one who planned it.’ 

Oliver blinked, his energy that drew Percy to him during the years they shared innocent kisses in his bed at Hogwarts, drew to a stop. ‘Oh, I thought you were doing this.’ 

Percy laughed. ‘Not really. I’m worried about Audrey. She wants to do this for me, but it’s hard for her. Would you make sure she’s okay?’ he asked, words clumsy, but the sentence was no less true. 

‘I can do that,’ Oliver said, dragging Percy to collapse on the couch.

‘Oliver!,’ he protested, laughing and curling into his arms. 

‘Yes?’ he replied, fake imperiousness in his tone. Like a king. 

‘Nothing,’ he said warmly, distracting himself with tracing designs onto Oliver’s bare hips. 

Penny arrived later, only an hour before the gala was to start. She took one look at the two of them on the couch, Oliver sleeping away and Percy reaching over every so often to get a new sheet of paper to annotate, and said, ‘I’m glad you’ve reunited.’ 

Percy beamed. ‘I’m glad too. He seems much more settled. Quidditich, well, you know how I feel about Quidditch, but I’m glad he’s there again.’ Percy pushed the fringes of hair framing his face back and pressed a kiss onto Oliver’s temple. 

‘We have to get ready for the gala,’ she said longingly. Percy nodded regretfully and pushed himself off of Oliver so that he could go up the stairs. He dawdled, keeping his eyes on the way Penny had woken Oliver up, slow and gentle. She was so much more sentimental than Audrey, who would have shaken him or set an alarm. Instead, Penny was letting him wake up. 

‘Where’s Percy?’ Oliver asked. Halfway up the stairs, Percy smiled when he heard it befpre hurrying the rest of the way. He took just over an hour to get ready, fixing the bags under his eyes and the war going on top of his head that some liked to call hair. He donned his best robes and took ten minutes to get the coffee stain out of them. 

‘Percy, we have to go,’ Oliver said, appearing in the door. 

‘Oh! Ollie! Could you get this stain out?’ he asked, showing off his sleeve. 

‘Surem’ Oliver replied, drawing his wand and muttering every laundry spell he knew. The stain was gone in seconds.

Percy groaned. ‘How do you do that? I suck at all of the housework spells,’ he said, teasing. 

Oliver smiled, lacing their hands together and pulling him out the door and down the stairs. ‘I have to practice, don’t I? For when I stop Quidditch and get to be you housewife.’ 

‘Oh, is that what’s going to happen? We’ll have lots and lots of mini Olivers to run around the house and light the trees on fire?’ 

Oliver frowned. ‘That was one time, Percy, I’d appreciate if we didn’t mention it again,’ he said stiffly.

Percy sighed. ‘There’s a half burt tree in our backyard that is probably going to fall over and kill us all because no one knows how to get rid of it, Oliver, we can’t forget about it,’ he said. 

Oliver started laughing. ‘It’s still there? Really? All you two are useful for is being smart. It’s sweet, but really, we should probably take care of that,’ he said worriedly, peeking out the window at the sad, blackened tree. There were a couple of birds sitting there. They continued down the hall, hand in hand, until they reached the living room.

Audrey looked tearful, staring firmly away from Penny, and Penny was looking guiltily towards the door. Before the two caught sight of them, he heard Penny whisper to Audrey. ‘I’m sorry, Audrey, I didn’t mean it, that was stupid, please don’t tell them.’

It reminded him of the times when he was little and the twins would lock him places or push him down the stairs, when they would cover his room in foam, and they would ply him with promises of help and apology and revenge when he started crying, before the house was lawless, before Ginny was born. 

‘Penny, what did you say?’ he asked, walking in with the authority that had drawn these three and everyone else in the Ministry during the war. 

Penny looked desperately towards the door. ‘It was stupid. And completely wrong,’ she said firmly. 

‘I accept your apology,’ Audrey said, straightening her dark curls and holding her head high. ‘Lets go.’ She led the way to the fireplace. Percy was the last one out. 

‘Knox,’ he said, darkening the house so it was only the light of the fire. He threw down the floo powder. ‘The Ministry of magic!’ he shouted, and he tumbled through the flames into a Ministry bedecked in finery. There were glittering gold banners draped over the Atrium, the brand new fountain that was all beautiful, glittering Albus Dumbledore. 

Oliver took his hand and squeezed it. ‘You go to schmooze. And I’ll say hello to all of our old friends,’ he said, leaning in and catching percy’s cheek in a light kiss. They would love seeing him again. Oliver had practically run the Magical Sports and Games Department during the war, had kept his head down and stayed close to Percy, as close as possible. 

They’d dated all through Hogwarts, at least the last few years, but when graduation came, Percy broke it off. There wasn’t going to e a reunion, they wouldn’t have found each other again, but when Oliver had come to the Ministry, his Quidditch team dissolved from pressure from the Death Eaters, Percy couldn’t help it. 

Oliver was intoxicating in every breath percy had of him, but his careful intelligence was even more pretty to Percy. He liked to come up with plans and things for what to do during the Ministry, and Percy had followed his lead, and everyone, for once, in that dear moment in history, had followed Percy. He wasn’t sure if he was still that person, because Arthur had isolated him into a little office near the front of the Ministry.

It had been nice to be looked up to for a moment, knowing exactly what to do, even when he didn’t. 

‘Percy weasley! I haven’t seen you since ScrimGeour died!’ a fat man boomed, and percy could barely stand to keep his distaste off of his face. He willingly sucked into the orbit of champagne and small talk. 

When cocktails were over, almost everyone went home. The Ministry couldn’t afford to keep the others around for dinner, but Arthur, in an admittedly sweet gesture, had offered to the original group to stay for a dinner. 

There were too many nightmares about galas, too many leftover rumors from the war, for too many to be attending, so the table was sparse. Corrie was sitting with Samantha. They caught sight of him, Samantha leaping to her feet and drawing him into a hug. ‘Oh, Percy, I haven’t seen you! Here, here sit next to me,’ she fussed. 

He smiled, so wide it hurt. ‘I can’t, Samantha, I’ve brought Oliver,’ he said, blushing lightly when she followed his eyes to where Oliver was standing in all of his lovely glory, the lamplight surrounding him like a halo. 

‘You two are still together?’ she asked, sounding as happy as Percy did on a relaxed day when he had Oliver at his beck and call. 

‘How could we not be?’ he asked, fondly, with a sappy smile on his face.

‘I’m glad. You two were always meant to be. I look for what you have,’ she said honestly. 

His eyes widened in surprise. ‘Really?’ he asked. 

‘Of course,’ she laughed, ‘Now go, go kiss him silly.’ 

He followed her advice, swooping into his conversation with the twins. ‘Percy,’ Fred said flatly. He still felt a pang in his heart when Fred said his name like that, unfeeling and angry. George had warmed up a little, sometimes even greeted him when he saw him, but Fred was as unmoving as stone. 

‘Hello, Fred,’ he said cordially. Oliver was staring between the two of them with surprise. 

‘Percy?’ he asked, voice small like a mouse. 

Percy tore his eyes away from his estranged brother. ‘Hello, Oliver.’ 

Oliver nodded at him, taken off guard by the hostility in the room. Percy wanted to cry, humiliated. Fred hated him, and he wasn’t even hiding it. Oliver would choose him, he would choose Percy every time, but arrogant Fred Weasley always thought he was the king. 

‘Mind if I steal you for a minute?’ he asked Oliver. His voice never wavered, though it was a close thing.

‘Of course, Percy. I was just talking about the new team that I’m no,’ he said, looking back at the twins. 

‘Oh, that’s nice,’ he said vaguely, clutching at Oliver’s forearms that had pinned him on the wall or onto the bed every time for a long, long time. Oliver walked in the clumsy half run percy had started, passing by his mother, who reached out for him. He ignored her heartbroken look.

‘Yes, but Percy. Percy!’ he said, stopping short in the middle of the room and leaning on the table. ‘You can tell me what ‘s happening at home, he said gently, and then he leaned up and kissed percy full on the lips, in front of everyone. Percy sighed, blowing a stream of air onto Oliver’s face. 

‘Well, in front of the whole Ministry, why don’t you,’ he said wryly. Oliver shrugged. 

‘You were panicking. Besides, it isn’t as if they don’t know, these are the ones that were always there with us, even as we were first getting together,’ he said innocently. 

Percy sighed. ‘My family, Oliver, you big idiot,’ he said, pressing his long nose onto Oliver’s endearing one. 

‘Oh! Oh, Percy, I’m so sorry. If it makes you feel any better, only Ron saw. I think.’ Oliver peeked awkwardly around Percy, checking around the room and slipping out from between his legs to next to him. ‘Yeah, it was only Ron!’ Oliver said, pleased. ‘Here, we can shut him up wick. God, it looks like he’s swallowed a lemon,’ he said, dragging Percy along. 

‘You two are dating?’ Ron asked in disbelief, once they had reached him. 

‘Shhh, it’s an open secret,’ olkiver said. Percy burst into helpless laughter. 

‘So I’m not allowed to tell anyone?’ Ron asked. He was surprisingly okay with it, and Percy was thankful. 

‘No, we would prefer if you didn’t,’ Oliver said, trying to raise his voice over Percy’s quiet giggles. 

Ron shifted on his feet. ‘Well.’ He paused. ‘You both have found a great guy.’ 

Percy beamed. ‘Thanks. I think Oliver’s perfect, too,’ he said. 

Ron smiled awkwardly. ‘Glad to hear it. I think dinner’s, uh, starting,’ he said, looking behind the two of them. When Percy turned around, people were, indeed, beginning to sit down. 

‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, following Ron and Oliver, who had begun to talk Quidditch, to the table. He took a seat next to Oliver. Ron was between Oliver and Harry Potter, his family clustered around one end and everyone else on the other side. He was right in the middle, Audrey and Penny across from him, and Samantha on his left. 

‘Is there a toast?’ Penny asked. Percy winced at the jab towards him. Samantha had gotten married to her husband, Henry, a Sports and Games employee, and he’d given the toast. Apparently, he was not very good at it. 

‘Just don’t let Percy do it,’ Audrey said, snorting in laughter. Arthur looked towards him, questioning, but Percy only buried his face in his hands. 

Arthur stood, his legs trapped by his chair. He wobbled until he pushed it back. Percy felt Oliver’s hand take his. ‘Well, i would like to say I am very proud of every person here,’ he said. 

A cheer rose up. The gala was really not as bad as he thought, Percy mused. The group was only thirty, 

‘How is everything coming along, dear?’ Molly asked. She looked beautiful, clad in some blue dress robes that matched Arthur’s. 

Arthur sighed. ‘It’s all due to them,’ he said, pandering to the group on the other end of the table. They tittered.

‘Eet eez so lovely to see the Ministry being so wonderful and together,’ Fleur said. Bill turned to her and kissed her softly. 

Granger, always so intense, turned to the end of the table. ‘How is the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures going? Would you say that it’s picking back up?’ she interrogated. Arthur paused in his conversation with Harry to listen. 

‘I wouldn’t know. Stay away from Creatures, those are the rules,’ Samantha answered after a lengthy silence. 

Hermione frowned. ‘But why?’ she cried. ‘THat is the most antiquated bullshit, i have ever heard,’ hs proclaimed, crossing her arms. 

Samantha froze, digging her fingers into the inside of her arm. ‘It’s not that, really, it isn’t, I promise. Those are just the rules,’ she said quietly. 

She had all the table’s attention now. ‘The rules?’ Arthur asked. 

She shook her head, swallowing convulsively again and again and again. Percy could feel it rising up in all of them, the collective memory. Percy had made the rules one day, that you had to stay away from Umbridge and DMLE, that you had to stick close to someone else, travel in pairs but never more than four. There were more. 

‘What rules?’ Fred asked.

Samantha laughed, artificial and glaring among the open honesty that the Weasleys embodied. Except for Percy. He lied a lot. He pretended that he was fine, that he was pompous and self important, he told his family that Penny Clearwater was his girlfriend, that he wasn’t scared of the dark. He never told them that he Obliviated two corrupt ministry officials when they found the plans that detailed the escape they were using. He had broken into the Department of Mysteries twice, he had stolen the spell so that he could make Portkeys for escape plans. He’d forged hundreds of documents. Everything he did was glaringly fake for anyone who knew him, or desperately hidden, and hidden well. 

Across the table, Audrey’s dark eyes flashed. ‘Well, Percy made the rules,’ she said quietly, taking a shaking breath. No, he thought. She didn’t have to talk about this, not tell everyone. She deserved better. Of course, it might have been her plan. Not tell them about everything he had done, that he had planned, but share the memory that he’d saved them. ‘Just simple ones. Don’t go near Creatures, don’t go near the DMLE, don’t get caught, travel in pairs, never speak louder than a whisper, if someone gets called into the Minister’s office, you have to get them water.’ She paused with a breath. 

Open curiosity on his family’s faces, looking towards him with wide eyes. What did you do during the war, Percy?

‘Why?’ Hermione asked plaintively. 

Audrey smiled softly at Percy, belying the dark thoughts behind her dark skin. ‘If you don’t follow the rules, it would have been bad for everyone. It could give everything away, of course. Or you could die, or go insane, or be put in Azkaban, you could have been labeled a Dumbledore sympathizer, you could put everyone in Azkaban.’ She leaned towards Penny, who caught her shoulder and rubbed, kept rubbing. The room went into a hush.

Oliver was squeezing Percy’s hand in spasms, forcing him to pull his chair closer. Arthur broke the silence. ‘That’s…’ he said, but he couldn’t seem to finish. 

‘What happened here?’ Potter asked, his eyes darting around the room. He sounded so sad, so innocent in some ways. Percy’s sister was next to him, staring at the floor with shadowy eyes. Poor Ginny, she would never be the same. He’d heard the whispers, that Hogwarts wasn’t safe this year, that a boy was in the hospital wing for the rest of the year. 

Samantha looked towards potter, and she blinked her tears away. They kept gathering in her eyes, though, shiny and full. She looked like death, dressed in her black robes with full, dark eyes that were keeping memories trapped in there,

‘Nothing happened. The war happened,’ Oliver answered. There weren’t words after that.

‘You worked here during the war, Oliver?’ George asked. 

‘Yes. Sports and Games,’ Oliver answered. ‘But mostly I forged documents.’ 

Fred barked out a laugh, before the dark expression on Oliver’s face told him he wasn’t joking. 

‘What? You embezzled money?’ he asked, teasing disbelief in his words.

Oliver shrugged. His hand in Percy’s was squeezing hard enough for him to lose feeling, but it was the only real tell. They’d learnt to manage the other ones. ‘No. I did other stuff for Percy,’ he said. 

‘What? Percy, you broke the law?’ Molly asked him, panicky. 

Percy tightened his shoulders. Audrey started talking before he could, though. ‘Of course. We all did. Percy was the worst, of course,’ she laughed, light and freeing. She sounded like the Audrey recognized from when she’d first started, on the days during the war when they were safe, shut up and doing paperwork in the dark rooms of their townhouse. 

‘The worst? Do you mean this ministry is…’ Arthur trailed off, brows furrowed as he gazed at every person at the table, his gaze heavy and damning. 

‘This ministry isn’t corrupt, Arthur. We were doing what we had to do to stay alive, not from greed or pressure from the Death Eaters,’ Penny reassured. 

‘Forgive me if I don’t quite care about that. Breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter your reasons,’ Arthur said harshly.

Samantha kept making helpless whimpers beside him, that only Percy could hear. Audrey cleared her throat. ‘I wasn’t finished, sorry. Are you saying that I should let this place burn? Gladly, of course, I left for a reason. But if you’re condemning us for forging ancestry documents and learning how to make Portkeys for our escape plans, for doing what we had to do to make sure that the Ministry didn’t fall apart because there were less than forty employees that came to work and did the work of four hundred, who worked ninety hour weeks, spent their weekends coming up with ways to make sure that more fucking Mudbloods were prosecuted to their fucking graves, who spent their six hours of sleep a night screaming, who weren’t even paid half the time, if you’re going to have us thrown in Azkaban for helping Percy Weasley keep away the Death Eaters from the five Departments that were still half functional, I’m going to use an Unforgivable curse on you.’ No one spoke. 

Samantha was toeing the line between collapsing and spitting venom. She chose the latter. Her voice wasn’t nearly as poisonous, none of the sheer anger of Audrey. On the contrary, her voice was quiet and nearly wavering. ‘Harry Potter snuck into the Department of Mysteries. Why are we going to be arrested for doing the same thing?’ 

Arthur, white-faced, looked to Harry. He’d shrunk into his seat, Hermione and Ron curving in on him. ‘You’re right. I don’t know,’ he said finally, his whole body slumping. 

Samantha was relaxed, her ivory skin smooth and unlike any other pretty girl. Her eyes weren’t full of tears anymore. ‘So don’t do anything. Trust Percy. He can do anything.’ Percy, like a god, a competent king full of answers. 

‘Not anything,’ Oliver said roughly, he’d been crying, Percy realized when he looked and saw the tear tracks. ‘He can’t ride a broom for shit.’ Percy chuckled, Penny giggling with him.

‘You did all of that, Percy?’ Molly asked. 

‘He did,’ Oliver said. There was a pleasant hush in the room, except for Percy. He was breathing too harshly. If everyone knew, they wouldn’t know him anymore. His entire personality, flipped around. 

‘Congratulations. You aren’t boring anymore,’ Fred said, almost surprised. Percy looked at him, holding his breath. When he saw Fred’s recognizable smile, directed at him, he almost lost it. He had his brothers again. Percy leaned his head on Oliver’s shoulder. 

‘Well, I haven’t been for awhile,’ he said, his voice thick. He hadn’t been boring since filthy kisses with Oliver and quiet ones under their canopy beds, planning for the future that they wouldn’t have had without the war. 

‘Thank you,’ Samantha said, and she had opened an outpouring. 

Each and every person chimed in and told him that he was perfect, that he was everything, that he was brave. Percy folded his hand in Oliver’s and cried.


End file.
